Developing on Eclipse 3.4, running on Eclipse 3.3

Question

I'm developing an Eclipse plug-in, based on a bunch of core Eclipse plug-ins like SWT, JDT, GEF and others.

I need my plug-in to be compatible with Eclipse 3.3, since many potential customers are still using it. However, personally I like the new features in Eclipse 3.4 and would like to use it for my development. This means I need PDE to reference 3.3 code and, when debug, execute a 3.3 instance.

Any tips on how this can be achieved?

Thanks.

Doby

Answer 1

You can change the 'Target platform' setting to point to the location of an existing set of eclipse 3.3 plugins. This will compile your code against the 3.3 plugins, making sure that they stay compatible no matter which version of eclipse you are using to develop the application.

The setting is under Window->Preferences->Plug-in development->Target Platform

Rosaleerosaleen

Answer 2

What Barak said. See also this topic on Eclipse help:

http://help.eclipse.org/stable/index.jsp?topic=/org.eclipse.pde.doc.user/guide/tools/preference_pages/target_platform.htm

Note also:

• the default target platform is your Eclipse install
• your dev environment should be at least as recent as the target platform (i.e. you cannot use 3.3 as dev environment and target 3.4)
• this also allows you to develop against plug-ins you don't have in your development Eclipse install.

Mandolin

Answer 3

And is it no way how to develop plugin for newer palfrom? Eg.: develop new plugin for 3.5 into 3.4...

Skyscape

In general PDE has never guaranteed forward compatibility. For example, Eclipse 3.3 would not be able to self-host a 3.4 based eclipse because there were significant changes involved with p2. – Amin